Marxism, then, has tended to be a theoretical or analytical discourse about revolutionary strategy. Anarchism has tended to be an ethical discourse about revolutionary practice. As a result, where Marxism has produced brilliant theories of praxis, it’s mostly been anarchists who have been working on the praxis itself.

At the moment, there’s something of a rupture between generations of anarchism: between those whose political formation took place in the 60s and 70s — and who often still have not shaken the sectarian habits of the last century — or simply still operate in those terms, and younger activists much more informed, among other elements, by indigenous, feminist, ecological and cultural-critical ideas. The former organize mainly through highly visible Anarchist Federations like the IWA, NEFAC or IWW. The latter work most prominently in the networks of the global social movement, networks like Peoples Global Action, which unites anarchist collectives in Europe and elsewhere with groups ranging from Maori activists in New Zealand, fisherfolk in Indonesia, or the Canadian postal workers’ union[2]. The latter — what might be loosely referred to as the “small-a anarchists”, are by now by far the majority. But it is sometimes hard to tell, since so many of them do not trumpet their affinities very loudly. There are many, in fact, who take anarchist principles of anti-sectarianism and open-endedness so seriously that they refuse to refer to themselves as ‘anarchists’ for that very reason[3].

But the three essentials that run throughout all manifestations of anarchist ideology are definitely there — anti-statism, anti-capitalism and prefigurative politics (i.e. modes of organization that consciously resemble the world you want to create. Or, as an anarchist historian of the revolution in Spain has formulated “an effort to think of not only the ideas but the facts of the future itself”.[4] This is present in anything from jamming collectives and on to Indy media, all of which can be called anarchist in the newer sense.[5] In some countries, there is only a very limited degree of confluence between the two coexisting generations, mostly taking the form of following what each other is doing — but not much more.